Trouble with Selenium WebDriver: Locating Elements in Headless Mode

Other Questions Headless Browser
1

I’m experiencing an issue while running a Selenium WebDriver test on a headless browser. My goal is to:

  1. Open a search engine page.
  2. Retrieve the page title.
  3. Locate a search input field.
  4. Click a search button and recheck the page title.

Below is my revised code sample:

import org.openqa.selenium.By;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebElement;
import org.openqa.selenium.phantomjs.PhantomJSDriver;

public class WebTest {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        PhantomJSDriver driver = new PhantomJSDriver();
        
        driver.get("https://www.duckduckgo.com");
        System.out.println("Page title is: " + driver.getTitle());
        
        WebElement inputField = driver.findElement(By.name("search"));
        inputField.sendKeys("WebDriver");
        
        WebElement btnSearch = driver.findElement(By.id("search_button"));
        btnSearch.click();
        
        System.out.println("New page title: " + driver.getTitle());
    }
}

When I run this code, the title is not printed and I get an error:

Page title is: 
Exception in thread "main" org.openqa.selenium.NoSuchElementException: Cannot locate element with name: search

It appears that the search element cannot be found even though it exists on the page source. I’m using Eclipse on Windows 10 and would appreciate any suggestions to resolve this issue.

2

I encountered a similar issue when working with PhantomJS. The problem often stems from the page not fully loading before Selenium attempts to interact with elements. To resolve this, I’d suggest implementing explicit waits in your code. You can use WebDriverWait to wait for specific elements to be present before interacting with them. Additionally, consider upgrading to a more modern headless browser like Chrome or Firefox in headless mode, as PhantomJS is no longer actively maintained. These alternatives tend to provide better compatibility with modern web technologies and more reliable performance in automated testing scenarios.

3

hey there, I had similar issues with phantomjs. Have u tried switching to headless chrome? it’s more reliable imo. Also, make sure u add some waits before finding elements. sometimes the page takes a bit to load in headless mode. good luck!

4

I’ve faced this exact problem before, and it can be frustrating. One thing that helped me was adding a page load timeout. Try this:

driver.manage().timeouts().pageLoadTimeout(30, TimeUnit.SECONDS);

Also, consider using WebDriverWait instead of just findElement. It’s more robust:

WebDriverWait wait = new WebDriverWait(driver, 10);
WebElement inputField = wait.until(ExpectedConditions.presenceOfElementLocated(By.name(“search”)));

These changes made my tests much more stable. If you’re still having issues, double-check your locators. Sometimes the page structure in headless mode can be slightly different. Using Chrome DevTools in headless mode can help you inspect the DOM and verify your selectors.